


Every Word Handwritten

by celeste9



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Character Death Fix, Episode Fix-It: s15e20 Carry On, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:13:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28245981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: Dean calls Castiel's phone to listen to his voicemail recording.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 7
Kudos: 64





	Every Word Handwritten

**Author's Note:**

> This is vaguely self-indulgent and I have no regrets! The title is from Handwritten by the Gaslight Anthem.

Dean finds the phone when he nearly trips over it. It skids a little across the floor when Dean’s toe makes contact with it and he stares. He knows what it is, obviously, whose it is. He purposefully steadies himself because he’s only just gotten a handle on himself and he isn’t about to fall apart again over a stupid fucking phone.

It must have fallen out of Cas’ pocket at some point before… before.

Dean picks it up and sticks it in his back pocket. He calls Sam.

-

It’s easy to ignore at first, to not think about it. There’s kind of a lot to deal with, given they’re trying to kill God or whatever. The phone remains a constant weight in his jeans pocket and there’s a stupid tiny part of Dean that thinks of it like Cas being with him. He thinks about that when he tells Chuck that he isn’t just a killer, that he’s more, that he’s different. Maybe if Cas believes it, then it’s kinda true. He hopes it’s true.

Then it’s over, and Cas is really gone. Jack doesn’t say, _I can bring him back,_ and Dean knows he would. He knows he would.

Dean doesn’t ask because he doesn’t want to hear Jack tell him no. If he doesn’t say it then maybe there’s a chance, somehow, someway. Some day.

But now Cas is gone, and all Dean has is a phone in his back pocket.

-

He keeps it charged. That’s dumb, too, and he knows Sam catches him doing it. He sees the flash of understanding cross Sam’s face and he abruptly leaves the room because that is a conversation he is not having. Not now, not ever.

It seems wrong, somehow, that the last words Dean heard Cas say weren’t even actually from Cas. Just Lucifer playing a trick. Dean can’t get it out of his head, the immediate relief he had felt, that of course Cas had come back, Cas always came back.

_“I’m here. I’m hurt. Can you let me in?”_

But it hadn’t been Cas after all, and the last thing he ever said was, _“Goodbye, Dean,”_ and Dean hates it. He hates it. Damn what he wouldn’t give for one more, _“Hello, Dean.”_

It takes a stupid amount of time for Dean to come up with… if not a solution, exactly, then at least a way to try to stop Lucifer’s fake Cas from being seared into his brain, or to stop replaying, _“Goodbye, Dean,”_ over and over. He needs to replace it with something else and Cas’ phone is a reminder in his back pocket.

Dean sits on his bed and calls Cas. The phone buzzes in his pocket. It goes to voicemail.

In his ear, Cas says, “This is my voicemail. Make your voice… a mail.”

A breath shudders out of him. He forgets to hang up for a good twenty seconds and then fumbles to end the call.

“Fuck you, Cas,” Dean mutters, letting the back of his head smack against the wall.

-

So, right. Dean calls Cas’ phone sometimes to listen to his voice. He’s not proud.

(He checks his own phone for any voicemail from Cas he might have forgotten to delete and finds none. He throws his phone in angry disappointment and is lucky the screen doesn’t crack.)

“I miss him,” he tells Miracle, because that seems safe. He needs Sam to think he’s fine, he’s okay, or at least for Sam to continue to be able to pretend he believes Dean is fine, without any enormous in-your-face evidence to the contrary.

He tells the dog instead and Miracle looks at him with giant eyes and rests his snout on Dean’s knee. Miracle doesn’t judge, or worry, or think he’s crazy. He only listens.

“It’s not fair,” Dean says. “It’s not fair that he laid all that shit on me and he knew, he _knew_ what he was doing, he knew what was going to happen. And it’s not fair that he… Fuck.” Dean drags his hand over his face. “He doesn’t get to die for me. He doesn’t get to make that choice.”

Only he had, and now all Dean’s got is a phone and a recording of his voice.

-

There isn’t any point in praying. Cas can’t hear him, not in the Empty. But the thing is, Cas being gone doesn’t stop Dean from wanting to tell him things. Stupid things, like the pie convention or like how Sam thinks he’s being subtle about Eileen, but also the things he never got a chance to say, the things that were hard to tell Cas to his face. The things Dean only really started thinking about after Cas dropped that bombshell of a confession on him.

Dean is already calling Cas’ phone anyway. It doesn’t take much to start talking.

“Cas,” he says. “I know you can’t hear me. This is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done, and I’ve done a lot of dumb things. I wanted to say, uh. I miss you, man. I miss you.”

He calls over and over again. “Did you think I’d be an asshole, Cas? Did you think it would change anything? Hell, maybe it would have, I don’t know. We’ll never know now, huh? Because you pulled that bullshit and you’re gone and it’s just me, and it isn’t fair.”

“Cas, you didn’t even give me a chance to… to… Fuck.”

“Cas, I love you, and I don’t know if I mean it the way you want me to, I just… Nothing’s the same without you. I miss you so fucking much.”

“Maybe I could’ve, Cas. Maybe I could’ve.”

“Cas, you don’t get to die for me, you son of a bitch. You don’t get to. I need you to come back. Please come back. Come home.”

Dean watches the voicemail notifications on Cas’ phone tick up. He wraps his arms around Miracle and thinks that at least there’s only the dog to see the extent of his patheticness, and the dog doesn’t care.

-

There’s a notification on his phone telling him he has one new voicemail from an unknown number. There’s nothing particularly remarkable about that. Could be another hunter someone gave his number to, or even a hunter he knows calling from a different phone. Someone looking for help, maybe, someone who knows a person they helped. The point is, Dean doesn’t think much of it.

He lets the voicemail sit for a few hours while he handles some things, and then he listens. “Hello, Dean,” Cas says in his gravelly voice, and Dean drops the phone like he’s in a damn movie.

“Shit,” he says, and Miracle cocks his head at him.

Dean’s mouth goes dry and he thinks, _did I buttdial myself from Cas’ phone?_ The thing’s been all but living in his pocket so it’s not impossible. Then he thinks, _damn you’re an idiot,_ because sure, he could buttdial himself but he couldn’t proceed to leave a message that sounds like Cas. Besides, it wouldn’t have been an unknown number; it would’ve said _Cas._

He thinks, _it can’t be Lucifer._ It fucking can’t be, not this time.

Who else does he know who would – and could – play such a cruel joke?

He doesn’t let himself think it’s actually Cas. He can’t do that again. He can’t.

“Shit,” Dean says again, still staring blankly at his phone. The tinny recording has gone silent, clearly having played its way through. Miracle whines from near his shins and Dean glances at him. “Yeah, okay, buddy. I know I gotta just listen to it.”

It takes him a minute to actually bring himself to replay the message, to bring the phone to his ear.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas says, and this time Dean knows it’s real. He feels it in his bones. “I heard your prayers.”

**_End_ **


End file.
